My last post was about the tyranny of quick fixes. Over the last week, my work has put that stance to the test.
While SSL is an SMB, we are nonetheless global. We’ve recently added some folks outside the US, and getting computing resources into their hands has put me to the test. I tried establishing some vendor relationships in region, but alas, we are too small fry for an OEM to set up an account in region. Denied on that front.
So, I’ve resorted to having the employee go to the OEM’s website in their region, send me their cart so I can validate it, and then approving the purchase. Today’s speedbump was that the OEM doesn’t allow US addresses in their billing address portion of their payment process. <insert image of me beating my head against a wall here>
It would seem to be so much easier to just allocate some funds to the new employee and have them order what they need. Aha! But this is that quick fix thinking that creates headaches down the road.
By standardizing on the OEM vendor, I’m able to automate enrollment into our device management system. What this means is an automated enrollment flow out of the box. The new employee gets their laptop from the vendor directly, opens the box and is presented with a company login. Once they authenticate, we push all their configuration down. Within half an hour the laptop is good to go with all the apps and policies they need to be successful.
If we just had them order whatever, that would entail probably an hour-long conference call/screen sharing session with each employee setting up their laptop remotely. Not to mention the hurdle of “oh, you bought Windows home edition?” We can’t work with that. Or a Chromebook? Or Unbuntu Linux? We aren’t setup to support you on those platforms.
So I have to remind myself that these speedbumps on the front end are saving me from the massive crevasses on the backend.